My leadership philosophy - Part 1: Charismatic and inspirational leadership

In my last article, I introduced a forthcoming series where I plan to share key lessons I’ve learned about what drives or derails leadership effectiveness, based on my 17 year career assessing and coaching executives. Taken together, these principles represent my ‘leadership philosophy,’ a kind of orienting framework which I reference often when determining how best to understand and support the needs of executives.

At the outset of the previous introductory article, I asked the thorny question ‘what is effective leadership?’ In this piece I would like to focus on one possible response, which is also the first part of my leadership philosophy, charisma and inspiration. (Note that I’ll use these terms interchangeably because they’re measured as highly similar in research on the topic.)

What are charisma and inspiration?

These terms seem intangible and mysterious, yet when we observe them, they feel incredibly powerful. Sometimes I liken the experience of observing a skilled charismatic/inspirational leader to watching a great athlete in motion – we don’t quite know what we’re witnessing, or how to explain the movement patterns unfolding in front of us, but what we see is mesmerizing and we feel moved by it.

In a similar way the downstream impacts of charismatic/inspirational leadership may be more knowable than the ‘mysterious’ upstream behaviours that produce those outcomes. For example, we’re aware that charismatic/inspirational leaders captivate our attention. We experience how they change the way we think, feel, and perceive the world. (In some sense they ‘transform’ us, which is perhaps why one of the most researched models on this theme is called ‘Transformational Leadership’ as I’ll describe below.) We sense how they motivate us to act, to pursue difficult goals, and to persist even when success seems unlikely.

But what are the charismatic/inspirational leadership behaviours that create such impact on us? These are harder to describe compared to our experience of them. As a result it can be tempting to view these skills as sitting in a black box, as qualities that can’t be described, or as innate and untrainable characteristics. (You may have heard experts debate whether leaders are born or made, a discussion which has lingered for decades.)

In this article, however, I’ll make the case that at their core, charisma and inspiration involve discrete and actionable leadership behaviours which we can describe and develop. I will try to pry open the black box and articulate some concrete behaviours that contribute to displaying this style. I’ll do that by explaining three ways to conceptualize charismatic/inspirational leadership, first based on a model called Transformational Leadership (TFL), second based on a model called Charismatic Leadership (CL), and third based on the results of an extensive global study of leadership called the GLOBE project.

While all leaders may possess different innate inclinations and abilities to express charisma/inspiration, I hope this article conveys that this skill set involves behaviours that any leader can choose to exercise, if they wish, and notwithstanding some discomfort when putting them into practice for the first time.

Before we start I’d like to offer three caveats. First, although we’ll focus on stereotypical behaviours associated with charismatic/inspirational leadership (e.g., expressing confidence, articulating a vision), I also recognize that leaders could inspire followers in other unique ways, like by stimulating innovative thinking, providing one on one coaching, or even showing kindness and empathy. In this article I’ll stick to how the three cited models define charisma/inspiration, but I also recognize that inspiration may occur through other pathways.

Second, you’ll notice that the descriptors of charisma and inspiration I provide are often general. So while the models I’ll discuss offer basic principles that can guide leaders when expressing charisma/inspiration, leaders will still need to operationalize these principles in ways that fit their working environments. For example, if one of the descriptors of charisma/inspiration is ‘instills pride in followers for being associated with him/her,’ the specific behaviours required to do this may differ across societal cultures (e.g., Western compared to an East Asian), or organizations (e.g., in a hospital compared to an investment banking firm). So some thought about how to apply these principles in practice may be needed.

Third, I’m going to write this article assuming that charisma/inspiration contributes to leadership effectiveness. There’s considerable data to support this (for example, here, here, and here). So I won’t spend much time reviewing the evidence undergirding this assertion. However, I am also aware that charisma/inspiration can be used for counterproductive, anti-social, amoral, or even exploitative purposes. Recognizing this, I’ve included some thoughts on the ‘dark side’ of charisma below. But my main point for now is that I’m going to bypass reviewing the data that supports the use charisma/inspiration, and assume it can have a positive influence in leadership contexts.

Transformational Leadership’s definition of charisma/inspiration

The first model we’ll review is Transformational Leadership (TFL) and was developed by a researcher named Bernard Bass, and later refined in partnership with a colleague named Bruce Avolio.

It emerged in the mid-1980s as an attempt to move beyond defining leadership based on specific traits, behaviours, or fit to the situation.

In contrast, TFL attempts to explain how leaders inspire others to extraordinary levels of loyalty, motivation, and commitment.

TFL would go on to become a central focus of examination for leadership researchers for well over 30 years. Academics would quibble with the structure of the model (e.g., is it made up of several dimensions or just one?), but the results supporting its positive outcomes (e.g., how it affects the attitudes and performance-related behaviours of followers) is quite strong.

TFL contains three major types of leader behaviours:

1. Charismatic/Inspirational

2. Innovation stimulating

3. Individual consideration and coaching

I’m going to focus on the charismatic/inspirational component of TFL in this article in part because it seems to be the most powerful in terms of predicting positive outcomes for leaders. Time and again researchers found that the ‘engine’ of this model, or the part that ‘carries the water,’ or contributes most to predicting desirable outcomes (like job performance, job satisfaction, commitment to the organization, or satisfaction with the leader), were the charismatic and inspirational behaviours. Charisma and inspiration are very powerful leadership qualities!

I’ll cover the other parts of TFL in a subsequent article.

The following are the specific charismatic/inspirational behaviours that TFL describes as important. The model states that leaders should…

1. Instill pride in followers for being associated with him/her

2. Go beyond self-interest for the good of the group

3. Act in ways that builds followers’ respect

4. Display a sense of power and confidence

5. Talk about their most important values and beliefs

6. Specify the importance of having a strong sense of purpose

7. Consider the moral and ethical consequences of decisions

8. Emphasize the importance of having a collective sense of mission

9. Talk optimistically about the future

10. Talk enthusiastically about what needs to be accomplished

11. Articulate a compelling vision of the future

12. Express confidence that goals will be achieved

Charismatic leadership’s definition of charisma/inspiration

Another major model that describes what charismatic/inspirational leadership might involve is called Charismatic Leadership (CL) theory.

This model was created by two researchers, Jay Conger and Rabindra Kanungo, around the same time Bass and Avolio popularized TFL.

There are five behavioural dimensions in this model (I’ll include a more detailed list of all the behaviours listed under each dimension in an Appendix at the end of the article):

1. Strategic vision and articulation: refers to creating and articulating a compelling vision of the future that is discrepant with the status quo.
2. Sensitivity to the environment: the ability to scan the environment for a number of limitations (e.g., technical, resource-based, skill-based, cultural) that may hinder the achievement of organizational objectives.
3. Sensitivity to members’ needs: refers to showing sensitivity to the needs and feelings of other members in the organization.
4. Personal risk: refers to the willingness to assume personal risk in order to achieve organizational objectives.
5. Unconventional behaviour: refers to using non-traditional means to achieve organizational goals.

GLOBE’s definition of Charismatic/Value-based leadership

In the mid-1990s a global consortium of leadership researchers gathered to undertake one of the most ambitious cross-cultural studies of leadership ever conceived. They called it the Global Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness project, or GLOBE.

The group investigated many questions, but one focus was to identify which leadership behaviours were considered universally effective, in every country and society on earth.

In the first phase of work, this group of 170 social scientists spent a decade gathering data from 17,000 managers, across 62 societal cultures, including all continents on earth.

After aggregating their results, the researchers uncovered several clusters of important leadership behaviours, two of which were universally rated as effective regardless of the societal culture they sampled from.

They labelled one of those dimensions charismatic/value-based leadership, and it encompassed the ability of leaders to inspire, motivate, and expect high performance from others based on firmly held core values. (The other dimension involved being a team-builder, which I’ll describe in a future article.)

The researchers defined charismatic/value-based leadership with the following dimensions:

1. Charismatic 1 - Visionary
2. Charismatic 2 - Inspirational
3. Self-sacrifice (note this dimension wasn’t universally endorsed)
4. Integrity
5. Decisive
6. Performance oriented

The researchers also found that the visionary and inspirational components were critical aspects of charismatic/value-based leadership, since they contain the greatest number of items universally perceived as contributors to effectiveness.

The universal positive leadership attributes included the following specific descriptors (I’ll also include these in the Appendix at the bottom of the article, for reference):

1. Charismatic 1 – visionary: foresight, plans ahead
2. Charismatic 2 – inspirational:  encouraging, positive, dynamic, motive arouser, confidence builder, motivational
3. Integrity: trustworthy, honest, just
4. Decisiveness: decisive
5. Performance oriented: excellence-oriented

Synthesizing three perspectives on charismatic/inspirational leadership

Synthesizing these models suggests several core features of charismatic/inspirational leadership.

Visionary: All three models mention the importance of being visionary, either in terms of creating the vision, articulating it in a compelling way, or both.

Inspiring: Each model mentions the importance of inspiring others, though in slightly different ways. TFL and GLOBE describe how leaders inspire by encouraging, motivating, or building confidence among followers. CL suggests leaders inspire more by setting and describing an exciting vision to others (i.e., they inspire using the vision/goal itself, and less by encouraging or expressing confidence in followers).

Integrity/Morality/Ethics: GLOBE mentions leaders should be trustworthy, honest, and just. TFL mentions leaders should consider morals/ethics in decision making. This quality isn’t mentioned by CL.

Self-sacrifice: This is a feature of both TFL and CL. It’s also mentioned in the GLOBE’s definition, though this quality isn't considered a universal feature of effective leadership (i.e., it may be important in some but not all societal cultures).

Performance orientation: This characteristic was only mentioned by GLOBE, not by TFL or CL. However, a fourth model of charismatic/inspirational leadership we haven’t reviewed here suggests this is an important factor. I’m also inclined to include it as pillar of this concept since my direct experience with corporate executives indicates that setting bold goals, in concert with other leadership qualities like encouragement and relationship-oriented behaviours, can be inspiring to others.

This leaves a few dimensions as possible outliers. For example sensitivity to the environment and unconventional behaviour (both from CL), and decisiveness (GLOBE) weren’t mentioned by other models.

I also want to acknowledge that while sensitivity to member needs appears only in CL, that TFL also contains a similar relationship-oriented dimension (though we haven’t focused on it here). We could debate whether leaders can inspire using relationship-oriented behaviours – based on my experience I think they can. For now I’ll leave aside the issue of where to categorize relationship-oriented behaviours (i.e., as part of charismatic/inspirational leadership or not), and offer assurances that I will to return to this topic and focus on it in more depth in a future article.

Other lessons about charismatic/inspirational leadership based on these models

These models also suggest or imply other subtle themes that we might want to include in our understanding of charisma/inspiration.

For example, these frameworks suggest that charismatic/inspirational leaders help foster a collective identity. They help followers see that they are part of a group, that the group has a powerful purpose, and that the ‘we’ or collective interests outweigh personal considerations.

These frameworks also suggest that charismatic/inspirational leaders appeal to higher order values when motivating others to support their vision. Articulating these values, beliefs and morals might help followers feel that they not only want to pursue the leader’s exciting vision (i.e., based on an emotional connection to it), but that they also ought to achieve the goal (i.e., based on a sense of duty or obligation).

These models also suggest that charisma/inspiration involves leaders helping followers to ‘make meaning’ out of their world. For example, they help followers reframe a goal as not just demanding, but also as attractive, exciting, purpose-based, perhaps even morally just. Leaders also help followers change their perceptions about challenging goals, so they seem more attainable. One way they do this is by expressing confidence in team members' capability to achieve those goals (e.g., leaders might say ‘I believe in you, and I believe you can do this hard thing I’m asking of you’).

The dark side of charisma

I’ve written the balance of this article using the assumption that most leaders would use charisma/inspiration to motivate behaviour in service of constructive objectives.

However, it’s easy to recall throughout history charismatic/inspirational leaders who motivated followers to pursue either ethical or unethical goals, or to behave in either virtuous or malicious ways.

Following this line of thinking, some researchers proposed thinking about charismatic leaders in two ways, either socialized or personalized.

They suggested that socialized charismatic leaders are egalitarian, serve collective (not self-) interests, and develop and empower others.

By contrast, they described personalized charismatic leaders as expressing personal dominance and authoritarian behaviour, serving their own self-interest, engaging in self-aggrandizement, and exploiting others.

More recent descriptions of personalized charismatic leaders highlight their emphasis on self-interest, manipulation and disempowerment of followers, restriction of others’ intellectual independence, and purposeful creation of unbalanced relations with followers.

While charisma/inspiration can have a positive effect on followers and organizations, it’s important to remember that it can also be used to pursue less noble objectives, using exploitative means.

How should leaders use these concepts?

I think the most straightforward way for leaders to use these frameworks is as a checklist to both guide and generate feedback about their behaviour. In preparation for a key event (e.g., leadership team meeting, Board meeting, presentation, team offsite), leaders can use the models to identify which behaviours they might like to focus on. In an after-event review, leaders can tick off which behaviours they demonstrated and which they didn’t. This method is a simple but effective way for leaders to strengthen their skills at inspiring others.

Conclusion

I hope this discussion of charismatic/inspirational leadership helped to articulate in more concrete terms what some may feel is an intangible or elusive skill.

I hope readers also feel empowered to practice and develop their skills in these areas. I believe any leader can choose to engage in the behaviours described in these frameworks, and use them to animate others towards a worthy objective.

In the next article, I’ll describing the remaining parts of the TFL framework that also facilitate leader effectiveness.

As always I would welcome your feedback, positive or constructive, on anything you read, and I would love to learn from your unique perspective. If you've signed up to receive the newsletter you can leave a comment on the article webpage, otherwise you can email me directly at tjackson@jacksonleadership.com.

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Tim Jackson Ph.D. is the President of Jackson Leadership, Inc. and a leadership assessment and coaching expert with 17 years of experience. He has assessed and coached leaders across a variety of sectors including agriculture, chemicals, consumer products, finance, logistics, manufacturing, media, not-for-profit, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, and utilities and power generation, including multiple private-equity-owned businesses. He's also worked with leaders across numerous functional areas, including sales, marketing, supply chain, finance, information technology, operations, sustainability, charitable, general management, health and safety, quality control, and across hierarchical levels from individual contributors to CEOs. In addition Tim has worked with leaders across several geographical regions, including Canada, the US, Western Europe, and China. He has published his ideas on leadership in both popular media, and peer-reviewed journals. Tim has a Ph.D. in organizational psychology, and is based in Toronto.

Email: tjackson@jacksonleadership.com

Web: www.jacksonleadership.com

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Appendix

Transformational leadership descriptors of charismatic/inspirational leadership:

Leaders should…

1. Instill pride in followers for being associated with him/her
2. Go beyond self-interest for the good of the group
3. Act in ways that builds followers’ respect
4. Display a sense of power and confidence
5. Talk about most important values and beliefs
6. Specify the importance of having a strong sense of purpose
7. Consider the moral and ethical consequences of decisions
8. Emphasize the importance of having a collective sense of mission
9. Talk optimistically about the future
10. Talk enthusiastically about what needs to be accomplished
11. Articulate a compelling vision of the future
12. Express confidence that goals will be achieved

Charismatic leadership dimensions and descriptors:

Strategic vision and articulation: refers to creating and articulating a compelling vision of the future that is discrepant with the status quo.

1. Provides inspiring strategic and organizational goals
2. Is able to motivate by articulating effectively the importance of what organizational members are doing
3. Consistently generates new ideas for the future of the organization
4. Exciting public speaker
5. Has vision; often brings up ideas about possibilities for the future
6. Entrepreneurial; seizes new opportunities in order to achieve new goals
7. Readily recognizes new environmental opportunities that may facilitate achievement of organizational objective

Sensitivity to the environment: the ability to scan the environment for a number of limitations (e.g., technical, resource-based, cultural, skill-based) that may hinder the achievement of organizational objectives.

1. Readily recognizes constraints in the physical environment that may stand in the way of achieving organizational objectives
2. Readily recognizes constraints in the organization’s social and cultural environment that may stand in the way of achieving organizational objectives
3. Recognizes the abilities and skills of other members of the organization
4. Recognizes the limitations of other members of the organization

Sensitivity to members’ needs: refers to showing sensitivity to the needs and feelings of other members in the organization.

1. Influences others by developing mutual liking and respect
2. Shows sensitivity for the needs and feelings of the other members in the organization
3. Often expresses personal concern for the needs and feelings of other members in the organization

Personal risk: refers to the willingness to assume personal risk in order to achieve organizational objectives.

1. Takes high personal risks for the sake of the organization
2. Often incurs high personal cost for the good of the organization
3. In pursuing organizational objectives, engages in activities involving considerable personal risk

Unconventional behaviour: refers to using non-traditional means to achieve organizational goals.

1. Engages in unconventional behaviour in order to achieve organizational goals
2. Uses nontraditional means to achieve organizational goals
3. Often exhibits very unique behaviour that surprises other members of the organization

GLOBE's universal, positive, charismatic/inspirational leadership attributes:

1. Charismatic 1 - visionary: foresight, plans ahead
2. Charismatic 2 – inspirational:  encouraging, positive, dynamic, motive arouser, confidence builder, motivational
3. Integrity: trustworthy, honest, just
4. Decisiveness: decisive
5. Performance oriented: excellence-oriented